


Cast List

by ScripStrel



Series: Stagedorks [5]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Christine will share my pain, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, How Do I Tag, Light Angst, Not Beta Read, Theatre, Waiting, jeremy is a good boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 11:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17386016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScripStrel/pseuds/ScripStrel
Summary: Aka: audition season is the bane of my existence, and Christine gets to suffer with me.





	Cast List

Christine let out a high-pitched whine and flopped backwards onto her pillows. “I’m not doing well,” she said.

“You’ll be fine,” Jeremy’s voice was garbled on the other end of the video chat, but a glance at the screen found him looking at Christine with a sort of concerned smile. Gosh, she didn’t deserve him. “You’ll get a part for sure. Reyes would be an absolute idiot not to cast you.”

“That’s not the point,” Christine said. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream, cry, or tear her hair out. She didn’t want to have to think about it, but she couldn’t _stop_ thinking about it. She wanted to—well no, not die exactly. But a light coma might be nice. Or at least some kind of ability to do anything else without freaking out twenty minutes in. Maybe she should run away and live in the forest and get adopted by bears. “I played it safe,” she said. “Reyes _knows_ me, and that’s the problem. It went perfectly fine, but I only showed him stuff he already knows I can do.”

“But you do it really, really well.”

“But there are all these people who don’t usually audition. Like. You managed to convince Michael to try out, of all people. Reyes has never seen him, so he can still surprise him. How am I supposed to get in if I’m not impressive?”

“Hey,” Jeremy scolded, and, based on the clacking thud, slammed his hand on his keyboard. “You _are_ impressive. You’re always impressive.”

Christine groaned and flopped around on her bed, landing flat on her face. “I don’t know how you’re so calm about this,” she said into the pillows.

Jeremy had a lot of experience deciphering her nonsense, luckily. “I freaked out earlier,” he admitted. “I was a wreck until I finished, and I made Michael listen to me ramble about everything that could possibly go wrong.”

Christine peeked her head to the side to breathe, squishing her cheek into the bed to squint crookedly at Jeremy. “Oh, you probably made the poor boy freak out about his own.”

Her boyfriend just shrugged. “I mean, he’s used to my issues by now. I’m texting him too, and he seems perfectly fine.” He giggled. “He’s probably high, actually. I think he would be freaking out if he wasn’t. He hates waiting for results from applications and stuff, and he kept saying he didn’t care, but he gets attached to things.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Jeremy raised an eyebrow.

“Just.” Christine whimpered. Her chest was tight. It had been since her audition _twenty-two hours earlier._ Not even the lavender essential oils and quietly looping Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack were helping. She half-wondered if trying to watch something might help, and she had plenty of bootlegs, not to mention a massive ‘need to watch’ list of Netflix content, but she also didn’t want to give herself too much quiet space to think in. “I shouldn’t be the person freaking out right now. Everyone keeps telling me I really have nothing to worry about and like, I have _experience._ If nothing else, I should know how to handle this.”

Jeremy just glared at her before running a hand over his face and sighing. For as calm as he was being, Christine could see the nervous tousle of his hair and the even-more-pronounced-than-usual dark circles under his eyes. Something in her chest sunk still further. She’d tried so hard to keep the audition atmosphere positive and encouraging, and look at her now: freaking out too much to be helpful. Fallen from glory. Wait, no, not glory. Glory made it sound like she was better than them, and she, well. She didn’t want to be. Although, the issue right now was that she was terrified she actually _wasn’t._

“I am the last fucking person to be allowed to get mad at you for being anxious,” Jeremy said. “I mean, do you realize how much of a hypocrite that would make me?”

“You get mad at yourself for having anxiety.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, ‘cause it _feels_ wrong. That’s like. The point.”

“I feel like I’m gonna throw up,” Christine admitted. “Or maybe pass out.”

Jeremy nodded. “I’ve been there. Just try to focus on the present. Think of what’s actually happening around you right now. What can you see?”

She _really_ didn’t deserve him. With a giggle, Christine said, “I see you being cute when you take charge.” Jeremy went scarlet in an instant, and it only made her laugh more. The sudden bubbliness in her chest freaked her out a little, to be honest. It felt so wrong when everything else was so heavy, but she was dwelling on too much right now to really let herself worry. “And even cuter when you blush.”

Jeremy floundered. “I—uh…” he choked out. Christine really wanted to kiss him right now. Make the rest of the world shut up for a minute and just enjoy what she had, with or without a cast list. Curse the computer screen in the way. “Y-you’re cute.”

The butterflies were somehow beating the abyss. Christine still wasn’t comfortable or confident, per se, still tangled in her hot mess of a bed and still fighting the urge to refresh her email every ten seconds, but she was finally at least a little happy. “Even when I’m freaking out?”

Jeremy scoffed, still pink. “It’s because you’re always freaking out.” He glanced away and drummed his fingers on his computer. “You’re so, like… Enthusiastic? I don’t know. It’s weird to try to put into words? Just forget it.”

Christine hummed along with Only Us in the background, warmth spreading through her. If only it could be only them. Forget all the stress of theatre and social standing and Squips that were hanging over them.

“I will not forget it,” she said, sitting up. “You complimented me, dummy.”

Jeremy made a face not unlike a scrunched sock puppet. “It’s not weird to say?”

A stone sunk in Christine’s stomach again, anxiety rushing back in as their flirting slowed down. “As long as it’s not weird to say that I still feel like a pile of stress-y crap.”

His expression relaxed. Jeremy brushed a hand along the webcam, as if stroking her hair out of her face, and her heart swelled. “Hey, no matter what happens, we’ll go get coffee or something tomorrow. We can go on a real date for once.”

Christine raised an eyebrow. “What, playing video games and belting karaoke doesn’t count as a date?”

“You know what I mean,” Jeremy said.

“Yeah, I do,” Christine hummed, looking towards the ceiling, where her half-dead fairy lights looked like fireflies, flickering in her vision like the shaky feeling in her gut. Damnit. “Hey, how did you get so good at this comforting thing?” she asked.

Jeremy shrugged. “I mean, I’m basically just doing what Michael has always done to help me. He likes to invite me over to get stoned after finals and stuff, so I have something lowkey to look forward to that doesn’t depend at all on the stuff I’m freaking out over.”

“That’s really smart.”

“Yeah, it helps,” Jeremy said.

“Michael’s really smart.” Christine blinked. “Sometimes I wonder why you’re dating me and not him.”

Jeremy glared at her. “We are not getting into this tonight,” he said over her giggles.

“But you’re so in sync!”

“Chris—” Jeremy’s voice and Christine’s laughter were cut off by a telltale dinging of their phones. An email.

Fuck.

All of Christine’s hopes and fears—rational and absolutely insane—suddenly boiled again in her chest, raging like a hurricane of acid on fire. Yeah, that was probably a pretty close metaphor. She could feel the blood pumping in her veins, spreading the hot, shaky venom through her.

Jeremy had blanched too, pale as a sheet as he scrambled through checking his phone. Christine was still frozen in her static of panic when he spoke up. “Do you want me to tell you or do you want to look?”

Christine hadn’t been sure she could speak, but now the floodgates opened. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna see it. Shit. I don’t know how to function without callbacks. What if I didn’t do enough? I have no idea what anyone else did, so what if I was just okay in comparison? Callbacks would’ve let me observe and figure stuff out, or at least the callback list would’ve helped ease me into not being on a list. Why didn’t he do callbacks? Oh god, what if I never do a show again? What if I’ve lost my touch?”

“Christine—”

She couldn’t feel her face. Everything had gone numb and tingly. Her ears were ringing. “Or what if I got in, but I got a part that everyone was fighting for? What if I end up spending the rest of my life avoiding people who now hate me just because they had their heart set on it and I’m what got in their way? Shit, shit, shit.”

“Christine!” Jeremy said, and his shout through her tinny laptop speakers was enough to send a sliver of light through her panic. “Just check it.”

Oh god.

Okay.

Deep breath.

With shaking fingers, Christine unlocked her phone and opened her email.

Holy shit.

Okay.

It would all be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Help me. The cast list comes out this afternoon.  
> Something short and vent-y, because I need to distract myself from my stress.
> 
> I adore feedback, so please feel free to tell me what you think.


End file.
